Harry Goldblatt
March 14, 1891 - January 6, 1977
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Scientific Discipline: Microbial Biology Membership Type:
Member
(elected 1973)
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Harry Goldblatt, an experimental pathologist, was best known for his work on blood pressure. In 1934, he conducted a classic experiment with the renal arteries of dogs. In the study, he constricted the renal artery with an adjustable clamp to induce an experimental hypertension that was almost identical to hypertension experienced by humans. This became known as the Goldblatt type of hypertension, and the experiment stimulated more research on the subject than almost any other medical experiment in history. From his experiment, Gladblatt concluded that variations in blood flow to the kidneys played a critical role in blood pressure elevation. This discovery allowed physicians to treat, and potentially cure, patients with hypertension, a previously unheard of premise. In 1974, the World Health Organization established human renin (purified by Goldblatt and his associate Dr. Erwin Haas), an enzyme in the kidneys that produces a protein responsible for raising blood pressure, as the international standard for measurement, and they are now referred to as Goldblatt units.
Goldblatt attended McGill University and earned his B.A. and M.D. degrees in 1912 and 1916, respectively. He studied surgery and experimental pathology with the U.S. Army and later at the Lister Institute of Preventative Medicine and University College, both of which are in London. He was hired as an associate professor of pathology (he became a professor of experimental pathology in 1935) at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio and stayed until 1946. While there, Goldblatt served as the associate director of its Institute of Pathology. He left to become the director of the Institute for Medical Research at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles, California. He returned to Cleveland in 1953 to serve as the Director of Laboratories at Mt. Sinai Hospital. In 1961 he was appointed the director of the Louis D. Beaumont Memorial Research Laboratories at the hospital. Goldblatt participated in numerous scientific societies, including the Central Society for Clinical Research, the American Society of Clinical Pathologists, and the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. He received both the Gold Headed Cane Award from the American Association of Pathologists and Bacteriologists and the American Health Association Research Achievement Award in 1966, as well as the Scientific Achievement Award from the American Medical Association in 1974.
